Family of 18-year-old suffering from drug-resistant TB had petitioned court

An 18-year-old woman and her family have won a battle in an Indian court to gain access to a restricted tuberculosis drug that her doctors say she needs to survive.

In a consent order from the High Court of Delhi, the Indian government agreed to make the drug, bedaquiline, available to the young woman. She has extensively drug-resistant TB, or XDR-TB, a rare and dangerous form of the disease.

The young woman’s health has deteriorated since her family filed a petition with the court on her behalf, and she was transferred last week to a hospital in Mumbai to be treated by Zarir Udwadia, a TB specialist there. The government will make bedaquiline available for her treatment until the hospital can obtain it directly for her under a compassionate use program, according to the order.

Bedaquiline, made by a Johnson & Johnson unit, is one of two new tuberculosis drugs to be developed in nearly half a century. It is recommended by the World Health Organization for patients with the type of drug-resistant tuberculosis that the young woman has.

Access to it in India is controlled by the government, which is rolling it out gradually due to concerns that it could be used inappropriately, fostering bacteria that are resistant to it. As a result, the drug was made available in 2016 only to qualifying patients in five cities.

The ruling is an important victory for patients with drug-resistant TB, health experts said.

“Now, there is a legal precedent showing that doctors, hospitals, and TB programs can be taken to a court of law and compelled to provide access,” said Jennifer Furin, a lecturer at Harvard Medical School and expert on treatment of XDR-TB, who provided an opinion to the court on the young woman’s case.

The public hospital in New Delhi where the young woman had sought access to bedaquiline also agreed to remove place of residence from its list of criteria for receipt of the drug. The young woman was from Patna, which wasn't included in the list of cities where the drug is available.